Update: WHO team visits P4 lab in Wuhan Institute of Virology - February 2021

[Pathfinder]

They covered up SARS, what changed?

The origins of Covid-19: Bats, lab leak or frozen food?

Well over a year since Covid-19 swept through the Chinese city of Wuhan, questions over its origins remain highly sensitive.

? 19 Mar 2021
By Yvonne Murrayin Beijing
...
China insists that it was transparent during the early outbreak, delivering "timely" information to the WHO.

Indeed, the WHO publicly praised China for its openness and cooperation. Yet behind the scenes, the Irishman leading the emergency response complained they weren't getting the information or access they needed.

In leaked recordings obtained by Prime Time, Dr Michael Ryan is heard comparing it to China's cover-up during the SARS outbreak in 2003

"This is exactly the same scenario, endlessly trying to get updates from China about what was going on in Guangdong and then, bang," he said.

"The WHO barely got out of that one with its neck intact given the issues that arose around transparency in southern China," he said. "We do need to shift gears here."

"'There's been no evidence of human-to-human transmission' is not good enough," Dr Ryan is heard saying in the recordings, which were first reported by the AP.

"This would not happen in Congo and did not happen in Congo and other places," he said.

"We need to see the data, we need to be able to determine for ourselves the geographic distribution, the timeline, the epicurve and all of that," he said.
...

https://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/2021/0318/1204794-covid-19-origins-china-wuhan-bats-lab-leak-frozen-food/

[Treyfish]

They covered up SARS, what changed?

[Pathfinder]

Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian's Regular Press Conference on March 19, 2021
...
The Paper: Peter Ben Embarek, head of the WHO origin-tracing mission to China, said in interviews on March 18 that the team hopes the report, now totaling some 280 pages, will be ready for release next week. The "fine-tuning of the text" has centered on scientific issues, while some English-Chinese translation issues were "taking a lot of time," he said. Has China received the text of the report? Do you agree with the content? When is China going to give its assessment and feedback?

Zhao Lijian: I understand the work related to the report has been carried out among Chinese and international experts. On March 16, a WHO administrative official said that the report on origin-tracing would be released next week. We immediately checked with relevant parties. To my knowledge, Chinese experts received an English version of the report from WHO experts on March 17, totaling around 300 pages. As we speak, there is no Chinese version available yet. WHO is still working on the translation. With respect to the specific content of the report, I'm not aware of it. Whether the report will be released next week depends on the discussions between Chinese and foreign experts.

As for the main conclusions, findings and suggestions of this joint mission on origin-tracing, Chinese and WHO experts already made them public at a joint press conference on February 9. I want to stress that origin-tracing is a scientific issue that should be studied by the science community.
...

https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/xwfw_665399/s2510_665401/2511_665403/t1862637.shtml

[sharon sanders]

The proper way to refute an opinion that you do not like is to do something like link to the person's resume. Then people can judge for themselves. For instance here is D. Shoham credentials on one internet site: https://idsa.in/profile/DanyShoham

Just because you do not like an opinion does not make it irrational. Stop with the politics and ridiculous deflections.

[JJackson]

And Emily's post by Shoham isn't? All I am doing is trying to bring some rationality to this debate. The ET comment is just to show anybody can make a ridiculous statement pulled out of thin air based on absolutely no evidence why should one be taken of any more value than the other. Keep the posts rational and I will stop trying to show how absurd and worthless they are.

[JJackson]

Sharon I do not accept that my post are illogical. If they have become political that is down to the political nature of many of the re-posted articles being of a political and not science or data based nature. If the site is genuinely not going to allow censorship then I am going to continue to counter any biased or ill informed posts that other members make. Post that begin it is possible that, or other wild speculation about lab escapes or nefarious undocumented gain-of-function need to be backed by some kind of evidence or I will counter them. If you want to ban me or censor my posts you can but I hope you will stop others from posting such claims unless they have at least some reasonable logic or data to back them up.

[sharon sanders]

JJackson commented
Today, 08:20 AM
One possibility is that this was a genetically engineered virus made by extraterrestrials prior to an invasion of the earth. Not a very likely possibility and not based on a shred of evidence much like that of Dany Shoham.

No drug or vaccine can get licensed without going through safety trials in mammalian hosts (normally mice or ferrets) and then primates. All countries that produce therapeutics have breeders who supply these animals. If you do not want animals used for this purpose then there will not be any safe therapeutics.

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Stop with the extraterrestrials talk. This is a warning. Honestly...ridiculous...you are the one "ruining" the reputation of FluTrackers....

[JJackson]

No I think DoD funding of Ecohealth alliance was an excellent investment in preventing zoonotic disease emergence and I applaud them for putting money where it is most likely to do some good. I would be grateful if you could explain on what basis you claim they did not clean the market and exactly what you meant by they left some red herrings and what possible reason you could have for adding "(or planted?)" which prima facie seems to be an accusation that someone falsified evidence which would be a serious crime. I am starting form the assumption that no one would accuse anybody else of falsifying evidence unless they had a good reason for doings so.

[sharon sanders]

There is not much available evidence left after a year and you know this. I do not care what any politicians or "deep state" think. I do not trust anything from any government, and that includes China, unless I can see some independent data. The type of work being performed at the China labs is known by their own submissions to journals over a period of years. This is a historical record. Just stop with your illogical fighting all over the site.

[JJackson]

One possibility is that this was a genetically engineered virus made by extraterrestrials prior to an invasion of the earth. Not a very likely possibility and not based on a shred of evidence much like that of Dany Shoham.

No drug or vaccine can get licensed without going through safety trials in mammalian hosts (normally mice or ferrets) and then primates. All countries that produce therapeutics have breeders who supply these animals. If you do not want animals used for this purpose then there will not be any safe therapeutics.

[JJackson]

JJackson - So you are implying that China sees the countries who are calling for an investigation as military & economic enemies? Yes - given the statements from the the US president and intelligence agencies and the vitriol in the media should they not be very wary of the motives of any outside investigation in to the origins of this zoonotic emergence. The attempts to try and blame it on the WIV should make them skeptical of the motives of their cold war opponents. All I am trying to do is to make sure this debate is evidence based and not based on the assumption that China's scientists and investigations are less trust worthy than their peers in other countries.
What can we do better? Not make unsubstantiated accusations about gain of function experiments or lab escapes but let the team on the ground perform their outbreak origins investigation focused on what they think are the more likely chain of events. Not pull funding on the research into the viral host reservoir and its animal and human interface.
Mass gatherings, like the banquet, were stupid but have nothing to do with how the virus got from bats to humans and are outside of the scope of the origins question.

[sharon sanders]

bump this

[Emily]

JJackson, I don't understand your reference to the US military. Are you suggesting that the US DOD funding Eco Health led to this disaster being unleashed on the world, including China? https://www.usaspending.gov/recipien...ff0ca-P/latest

https://www.usaspending.gov/recipient/b4530532-4f85-c249-5fa5-0b86b6cff0ca-P/latest

[Emily]

If this is a correct representation of the process, it does not seem sensible. Something deemed too dangerous for a US lab is outsourced to a recently built facility in China. This CDC decision is one of which they should be ashamed.
Separately, does anyone know what kind of lab animals were used to test these GOF virus constructs? There should have been documentation of the procedures based on the work done under US sponsorship.
One could imagine a lab worker selling used animals on the side to the nearby wet market.

Most likely non-human primates. Viruses are routinely shipped around the world in spite of safety and national security concerns. But shipping a primate colony involved in this type of research is another thing. That and cost factors are probably why the project wasn't moved back to the US once GOF got the green light again. I don't think there is transparency as there should be about the experiments given that they are NIH funded.
https://blog.whitecoatwaste.org/wp-c...ch-15-2021.pdf
https://tennesseestar.com/2021/03/17...laint-alleges/

https://besacenter.org/perspectives-...ovid19-origin/
Where Did COVID-19 Really Come From?
By Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham July 28, 2020
Lt. Col. (res.) Dr. Dany Shoham, a microbiologist and an expert on chemical and biological warfare in the Middle East, is a senior research associate at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He is a former senior intelligence analyst in the IDF and the Israeli Defense Ministry.

BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 1,664, July 28, 2020

....
One possibility, then, is that a wild-type virus was first propagated repeatedly in human tissue cultures, and the resulting spontaneously upgraded virus was subsequently used to experimentally infect monkeys or ferrets?one of which then accidentally infected a person in the lab. (The WIV has long been routinely supplied with rhesus monkeys from the Macaque Breeding Base in Suizhou City.)

[sharon sanders]

JJackson commented
Today, 02:31 PM
Etudiant re. "Plus it seems disingenuous at best for China to object to being investigated when the outbreak clearly began in China." No other country has ever had to be 'investigated' after it detected and reported a zoonotic outbreak within its boarders nor would they allow it. The world's nation states were careful to make sure the WHO could not do this, again if you interest in exactly what the WHO is allowed to do please see this thread. https://flutrackers.com/forum/forum/...-reveres-posts post #1 and #12 being the most relevant.

Also consider the following hypothetical - a zoonotic event happened to occur in the US and the WHO put together an international team of experts to 'investigate' while the international press were howling that it was a US bio-weapons escape. The team included scientists from China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela and were demanding free access to all military and civilian BSL facilities, personnel and documentation. How do you think the US, or any other country, would react? Even if it was couched as a fact finding mission with US scientist included I can not see the US being as accommodating as China has been.

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JJackson - So you are implying that China sees the countries who are calling for an investigation as military & economic enemies? (regarding your reference to the US vs. "China, Russia, Iran, Cuba and Venezuela" above). Interesting.

This is not a political site. Please stop trying to connect the pandemic outbreak in China to anything political. I would be saying the same thing if the outbreak was in England, for instance. Let's get to the bottom of this so we can try to prevent it from happening again. Let's analyze the outbreak and initial response so it does not spread globally. What can we do better? Probably not hosting a dinner party for 40,000 people in Wuhan while the unknown pneumonia cases were growing exponentially in that city would be a start.

The world's general observation that the pandemic started in China is rational. Ask the Wuhan doctors who were called into the police station for revealing the unknown pneumonia cases if China is accommodating. Oh...that's right. Most of them are dead as far as I know.

And forget about deflecting any discussion about China to about how bad the US is. That is a different discussion. I suggested to you a long time ago that you start a thread about US lab escapes. Go for it. It will not change anything about the China discussion.